Gratitude, Goals and Balance: How to Maintain Your Weight Loss for Life

It’s hard to lose weight, but you know what’s even harder? Not losing weight. Or gaining it. That’s right. The M-word. It strikes fear in the heart of dieters more than the words “counting calories” or “low carb”: Maintenance.

It’s easy to lose motivation once you’ve hit your goal weight. When you are losing weight, there is incentive: smaller clothes, smaller numbers on the scale, pats on the back and admiration from others. But once you’ve hit your goal and you are there for a while, that all begins to fade: people are used to your smaller frame, those moments of anticipation on the scale give way to the boredom of seeing the same range of numbers flash week after week. The excitement is gone. What’s there to strive for? To see no change? Is nothing even a goal?

Once you lose the weight, how do you keep it from coming back? By staying vigilant. You can cut yourself some slack for reaching your goal, but it’s not time to take your eyes off the prize or before you know you it, you’ll be right back to where you started. Here are 10 ways to ensure that doesn’t happen.